Whew… it’s been a busy time here at HHR, with all my photo posts from our trip, updates, catch ups, and everything. Hope you can stomach one more photo binge. Can you?

Here are all the rest of our initial Fredonia pics, from our first few days and weekend here! Just like the other posts of the fancy pics (all the photos from Long Island and then all the photos from Pottersville), I’m just going to throw all the photos in here as a blob, and anyone who wants to can go through them.

i just love the scenery. it’s refreshing to be somewhere with such a different look

pretty leaves

smooches for me.

aww rocky! nick and austin’s pooch, a happy (crazy) puppy boy

barefoot? bad idea duggs!

who do you think won?

hoops, austin vs. duggs

nicky, working on the weekend – time to mow the lawn and wack the weeds

happy doggie, gets to run and play!

pooch is in heaven.

i love the colors here on a sunny day

duggs at the wheel our first day in town, checking it all out and seeing what’s nearby

instagram style view of the backyard, and nick’s “path to nowhere”

grapes!

the house from the front

nicky’s spacious backyard

So things should be getting back to “normal” around here … if my blog even has a normal! It’s been fun including everyone on the trip, and I know that people have been so curious to see what our surroundings are like, to see the big difference it is to go from Hawaii to Western New York. So it’s been fun.

But hopefully life will take on a more routine feeling and I’ll get back in the swing of things, around the house, with work, and here too! I’m hoping that my energy levels keep soaring and before you know it I’ll be posting about running again, and who knows what!

I’m just so very glad to be where I am. I’m feeling better in so many ways, and just being on the first page of a fresh chapter is so nice. I’m so blessed to be with my Duggs, surrounded and supported my some amazing family and friends, and to have a whole new section of our story to set out on. No matter how routinized daily life becomes, that aspect of where we’re at – that newness and that exciting looking-over-the-edge feeling won’t wear off for a while I don’t think, at least I hope it won’t!

Anyways. For now, I’m quite happy to be posting from Fredonia. And I hope you’ve enjoyed coming along with us on the trip!

Saying goodbye to paradise was harder than I thought it was going to be. This next step of life is so exciting and wonderful, and trust me: I’m blessed, happy to be where I am physically, emotionally, and everything – this point in life is good.

honeymoon at turtle bay, an amazing time

Our life in Hawaii was extreme, we saw great times and faced challenges. We reunited there after deployments, but it’s also the place from which we had to say good bye. We spent sun kissed afternoons out on the water, luxurious days at Turtle Bay, fun evenings out and about… it’s where we said “I do,” and it’s where we found the apple of our eye – our sweet pooch JJ Duggan!

our wedding day

exchanging vows on kailua beach, we did our wedding our way and it was so perfect for us

me and the sweet lil’ pooch, oh i’m so glad we found him in hawaii

It’s also where I’ve battled some health issues, it’s where we suffered a great loss when we experienced our miscarriage, coping through a lonely and hard deployment that was tossed at us without much warning. But through it all, we came out on top, our marriage was bonded tighter and stronger – so we’ll take with us the happy sunny sweet tropical memories and get ready for a clean slate as we wipe away and move past some of life’s tougher trials.

saying goodbye before a deployment

saying hello when he comes back home again! ahhh, the reunion kiss is always the best.

I’m excited to be in New York and starting this next phase of our lives. We’re literally writing the first page of a new chapter. Matthew is out of the Marine Corps and he’s now a civilian, we’ve left Hawaii and moved to New York. We’re setting out on our own, together. Duggs was already established in the USMC and living in Hawaii when I came out and joined him – this is a step we’re taking together, going through it all hand in hand.

So yes, I’m stoked to be here in New York…

But I’m going to genuinely miss Hawaii. I just wanted to take a little post to reflect on the gorgeous aina paradise and really say Aloha.

aloha to paradise, i’ll miss the warm pacific oh so much

we had so much fun boating and out in the hawaiian sun – too much fun to be had every hawaiian day

Hawaii is the kind of place where everywhere you go, there’s an epic view and a breath-taking scene to just suck in and fill yourself with. The lush mountains, rainbows, flowers, the amazing bright blue oceans and the warm buttery sun bathing all of us. Hawaii really is this vibrant, happy, relaxed paradise and I am so incredibly blessed to have lived there and spent the time there I was able to.

horseback riding on the north shore, romantic and something i’ll never forget. a truly one of a kind experience.

this island is incredible, i could take a million pics and still wish i had more

When family and old friends came out to visit, we were able to have an awesome time with them in Hawaii – showing off our island home. I made some amazing friends and connections in Hawaii, Hope Chapel Kaneohe Bay refreshed and renewed my faith and my love of Christ.

sky diving day in the fall of 2010 – duggs, me, anna (my sister), and brian (duggs’ all time bff)

girl’s hiking morning at makapuu lighthouse, while all of our hubbies were deployed we made the best of it!

hope chapel k-bay is where i so found my heart for God – this past christmas was so awesome, here i am in between mel and tami!

The military experience is one that we’ll always remember. Me as a spouse and Duggs as a dutiful member of the United States Marine Corps. His service is the whole reason we were ever in Hawaii. Even though the USMC liked to throw wrenches in our plans all the time, I have the utmost respect for the branch and the military in general. I’m grateful for the hard and brave work those dedicated men and women do, and I’m so proud to be married to a man as nobel as a Marine.

our first usmc ball together, in 2010

I tried to pick a couple photos to sum up my amazing Hawaiian experience, the wonderful times I’ve spent in paradise. And yeah, it was impossible. So thus… here’s a crazy montage of pics as a way for me to say Aloha!

horseback riding on the north shore, romantic and something i’ll never forget. a truly one of a kind experience.

our first usmc ball together, in 2010

honeymoon at turtle bay, an amazing time

hope chapel k-bay is where i so found my heart for God – this past christmas was so awesome, here i am in between mel and tami!

girl’s hiking morning at makapuu lighthouse

exchanging vows on kailua beach, we did our wedding our way and it was so perfect for us

our wedding day

me and the sweet lil’ pooch, oh i’m so glad we found him in hawaii

haunted lagoon at the polynesian cultural center, with ashtan + me

me and ashtan and her navy day ball!

L.O.V.E. HCKB Women’s Retreat 2012

hope chapel women’s retreat 2011 – arise and shine!

this island is incredible, i could take a million pics and still wish i had more

saying hello when he comes back home again! ahhh, the reunion kiss is always the best.

saying goodbye before a deployment

we had so much fun boating and out in the hawaiian sun – too much fun to be had every hawaiian day

aloha to paradise, i’ll miss the warm pacific oh so much

good ole wackiness from my first ever trip to hawaii, back in 2009

giddy up! horseback riding on the north shore, an amazing day to always remember!

I’ll miss Hawaii so very much. I hope that we’ll be able to visit again one day, and hopefully it won’t be too far in the future that we get to go back. Until then, I’ll take my mainland life one day at a time and find new beautiful sights to oooh and aaah over, I’ll discover new favorite places and I’m sure Duggs and I will forge tons of new memories and create lots of new adventures, all with stories to tell. But as we do, I take some little pieces of Hawaii with me always – the sea turtle tattoo I got on my first trip to the island, the wedding ring on my hand that will always make me think of Kailua’s soft sandy beach, and the thousands of memories forever etched into my heart.

I actually drafted this post back before we even left Hawaii, and just didn’t have time to polish it, upload the pics and get it online. But for the sake of continuity and explaining a little bit of what the heck happened to me (when I fell off the face of the blogging earth), I figured I’d go ahead with it anyways. So keep in mind this here blog wraps up our last days and weeks in the beautiful tropical paradise of Oahu, a place I’ll always love and already miss dearly.

What happened to the rest of April 2012? We were overcome…

Mold, Maggots, Moving, Medical Maladies, and even more Misc. Misadventures!

I really really thought I could keep up with the 30 Days of Blogging Honesty Challenge. I really really did… but clearly I did not. (My last day was day 12, that’s hardly a noble effort. Sheesh!) And I’m bummed, and disappointed in myself. I’ll admit, sometimes I have a hard time finishing through with projects. And I try really hard to manually get into my brain and change my ways, try to do better- but I’m human, and I long ago abandoned my perfectionist ways and the obscene pressure I used to put on myself to do everything to the letter; I’ve learned when to walk away, or ask for help, or admit I’m not hacking it. So as far as blogging diligently these days? Keeping up the 30 Days challenge? I’m so not hacking it.

I did not hack it!

Perhaps it’s a case of bad timing? Most likely a case of taking on WAY TOO much at a time when I knew I shouldn’t have. When real life gets super duper busy and something has to go – personal blogging and other just-for-fun hobbies have to get cut before working, or eating, or cleaning do. So with everything we had juggling, the happy hippie rosieness I add to the Interwebs had to take a backseat (sadly).

A big thanks to the gang that let me play along for the meager days I did, and to all of those who read the entries and had fun with it all. Here‘s where I found out about it all, over at the fab Tom Baker‘s blog. Maybe next year I’ll try again, and in the very least I have a lot of new blogs that I subscribe to now. So that’s fun!

Before I get into the super gross stuff, I had better point out – April 17th was our SECOND WEDDING ANNIVERSARY!

april 17, 2010 – the best day of my life

So Duggs took the day off, and so did I, and we both stepped away from the compies and the Interwebs and celebrated by spending a lovely, peaceful day together. We had some lofty and fancy plans, and in the end just opted to relax and be together. My Dad and Step-mom did gift us the edible arrangement (yummy!) and we got some very nice cards in the mail too. So- for all the anny love, THANKS Y’ALL!

thanks viper and anna, it was soooo yummy!

We had a great anniversary, and we’re so very blessed to have spent two wonderful years of marriage. Here’s to many, many, MANY more to come!!

Now,

Onto the gross:

MOLD

looks appetizing, yeah?

They really really did find mold in our house on base. Oodles of it, gross stuff. All kinds of colors and colonies. At first they tried to lie about it and tell us it was dust. But I’m no fool, no sir-ee, and I pushed and insisted to have them act as if it were mold.

What came of it? A couple measly attempts to clean out our A/C ducts and not much else. The sad part is that a new family will move into that very same house (they may already be in there now) and who even knows what can and will happen to them and their health.

a moldy air vent, lovely!

duggs has way better pics, way more documentation… but there are the ones i snapped the day the housing guy told me that our vents were just “dusty” and he didn’t see any mold.

Yes, they’re tearing the street of houses down sometime in 2013 and building fresh brand new ones. But a year or so is still a long time to dwell in a poisonous death trap. And who knows what other houses are full of what other kinds of spores and methods of slow respiratory suicide?

Ugh.

I’m really hoping that the longer I’m away from Bordelon Loop, the better I’ll feel. I want my lungs to get rid of the gunk and the nastiness that’s embedded into my body. I truly hope that both Duggs and I see some restored health in the near future. What if all my face pain and ear ache troubles were mold caused from the jump?! Getting a “cure” out of moving would be utterly epic.

MAGGOTS

This wasn’t my first encounter with household maggots. Sad, but true, Exactly a year ago they plagued me and had me on the edge of my sanity. There’s just something about maggots squirming all over my home that just horrifies me. They’re just SO. DAMN. GROSS.

Gross = such a severe understatement. I hate them!!

eww. eww. eww. eww. EWW!!!!

Now, we didn’t have a massive abundance of maggots crawling all over the place. It’s not like they were covering the walls and ceilings, etc. But every day we’d find them… four, six, ten at a time and it seemed like each day there would more. Always congregating in the same area of the house, but I was never able to find an exact source. And talk about hard to kill. They so difficult. You have to use bleach (which we were out of) or you have to literally squish them so hard they pop to death.

HOW EFFING NASTY IS THAT?!?!?!

If you just threw up in your mouth a little bit and never want to even ever read my blog again, I don’t even blame you. That idea is so nasty to me I even hate myself for just typing it out. Now imagine that I had to live it.

Last year when the maggots came, I prepped this whole crazy blog post about it all, complete with lots o’ pics. And then, I decided not to post it. With the use of bleach and hard work, sleepless nights and Carly’s steam cleaner I was able to combat the nasty crawlers in a few days… and well, I had just started my tie dye ‘biz and I was worried no one would want to buy a shirt from the maggot house. I mean, rightfully so. And Duggs hates people thinking that he has me living in squalor, it’s embarrassing.

from the 2011 invasion – they came in by the front door.

okay, so looking at this (another ’11 pic) i remember that last year’s batch was actually way way worse than this year’s. the 2011 influx just scarred me so badly, i’m now a huge weenie when it comes to maggots and i’m totally fearful and icked out and just can’t hardly handle them.

last year i had bleach on hand. come 2012, my hippie green ways have so evolved, i didn’t have any available.

same species this year and last, that’s for sure though

last year, i was all no-nonsense. i needed to re-find my old 2011 badassery for this year’s dilemma. i mean, actually… i was kinda badass in my own right after the first couple days. i got over the initial fear and started going rambo on those little bastards. i’m not all shrinking violet, ya know.

look at how tough i was a year ago (and tan, jeals!!), i’m gonna be this gal again!

But we keep an immaculately clean home, that’s just the tropics for you! It has nothing to do with our cleanliness or hygiene, or the caliber of provider my wonderful husband is… it’s just Hawaii!

MOVING!

At time of press I’m already in the great state of New York. But managing such a big move isn’t just a hop, skip, and jump. So during the last half of April (especially) our lives were really up-ended as the moving date got closer and we had more to do.

my final look at our pink house on the hawaiian hill – so many mixed emotions, so much joy and some really challenging times all went down within these walls. i’m excited to move forward because that’s the direction of life. but i’ll always have a special place for the first home i shared with my husband and all the experiences we shared there.

Shipping the dog = getting his health certified, shots and records updated, making sure his crate is the right kind and all good to go.

Shipping the car = special letter from Honda since it’s a leased vehicle, getting it all cleaned and properly prepped to go, not to mention having to turn it in so we didn’t even have a whip to get ourselves around.

Shipping the goods = movers came and packed, so at least that part is taken care of. But there’s still lots to plan and accomodate, lots of organizing to do.

there’s all of our worldly stuffs, all packed and crated up

good bye goods, see you in ny!

Prepping the house = painting, cleaning, fixing, mowing. Just getting the mold, maggot, rat, ant, spider, infested death trap into suitable condition to turn in the keys was such a joke. The place was such a mess! And yet they had us spit shine the whole place top to bottom as if we were turning over the taj mahal. sheesh!

duggs, the wonderful good man he is, did most of the painting

when i say “most,” i mean like 95% of the painting… i helped do the first coat in a room and a half… he did all the rest + all the final coats on his own

i don’t think duggs slept for two weeks straight with all the prep we had to do to move

Taking care of getting all my meds refilled and stocked, getting in all my last appointments and securing records. It’s this kind of stuff that you don’t even think of!

what’s a goodbye tour of o’ahu without a trip to good ole tripler army hospital? hahaha. oh, of course.

duggs and i at the pharmacy together, a task we’ve done so many, many times together… and this one was our last

Not to mention planning work, finances, arrangements, figuring out where to go and how we’re getting each step of the way… etc. etc. etc. There’s a lot that goes into such a move. Especially considering that Duggs is transitioning from military to civilian. Not only are we changing continents (kinda) and location, climate, and timezone – but our lifestyle is totally changing in so many ways too!

Duggs had epic amounts of paperwork to do, signatures to get and all kinds of running around to make sure we were all squared away. Once the packers came and nabbed all of our stuffs, we moved to a hotel 30-40mins away from base (based on traffic) and that’s when things got even wackier!

Limited and low quality Internet, limited access to anything, me and pooch living in a tiny room. And oh the horror… no more cable! No DVR! I can’t even continue discussing the hardships I endured.

(I’m being sarcastic. Other than being in a nosy, weird part of town with the pool closed for repairs and the Internet super craptastic, it was perfectly fine. The staff was lovely and I had a nice enough time. And pooch-friendly! Who can ask for more?!?!).

But seriously, what’s a move if nothing goes wrong and all goes smooth?

-Duggs got in a fender-bender, won’t get into the details here – but as it all worked out, we REALLY lucked out on all the technicalities of that one, although for a day or so it was a huge source of stress. Thank God no one was hurt!

-The shipping company didn’t take the car the first time we went to go ship it – some mess about having wheel locks on and not having the key available to take them off (the key got packed when the movers packed up the house, oopsies!). So figuring that out made us sweat a bit. A lot a bit.

adios honda! see ya in new jersey, sooner hopefully than later!

ahh, the thrills and good times we had here.

-The prescriptions for my final day of med pick ups were all messed up, and thankfully we were able to sort it out, but the day we left we spent three hours un-doing that whole mess. Driving around to the pharmacy and the doctor’s, cabs and all kinds of stuff. Oy! Mess!

-We had so much packing to do, we were cramming it all into our bags right up until the last minute possible…

jj standing guard over all the crazy mess that we had to pack up. yikes! (we unpacked it all, so that we could re-do the most efficient packing job possible).

When Duggs went to give JJ a quick bath, and the hotel room’s bathroom door malfunctioned, and locked JJ in the bathroom! Thankfully the tub wasn’t plugged (although the water was running, and it was such an awful waste). We had maintenance come as quickly as they could and try to break open the door, but since something was broken with the knob and lock, it took them like 15 minutes to bust him out. Poor guy was so scared – and poor us, so stressed having all this go on while our flight count-down was ticking right in our face. We didn’t have time to burn!

the crazy bathroom door that self-locked and trapped poor jayjers in there all alone

if you look to the left you can see the pooch in there. i layed on the floor and he put his nose under the crack and sniffed me, gave me little smooches. he gets so scared so easily, i had to go wait with him and stand a vigil.

the maintenance guy who came to free our pooch!

I’m sure more went wrong, it felt like at the time that everything was going out of control. But then we made it… we made it to the gate, we boarded the plane (the last ones on), JJ made it too, we all got to NY safe and sound and in one piece and well, that’s all we could even ask for.

Moving can be such a colossal pain in the bum, but starting a new chapter of life is such an amazing experience. It’s so cool to get to start something fresh with Duggs and set out into together and see what will come and figure our way together.

Medical Maladies

Sickness. Yes, I have been violently ill. AGAIN. This time it was a stomach bug. Luckily for me, it hit me the hardest right on moving day and I was rendered useless while trying to pack our house and get everything together to move from Hawaii to New York. Perfect timing, right? I was vomming and so sick to my stomach I could hardly move. THANK GOD it has let up the past few days and I’m cautiously optimistic about referring to myself as “feeling better.” (I wrote this part from the hotel in Hawaii, on one of the last days of April – at the time of press I can tell you that my stomach bug totally cleared up and I’m feeling much better on that front, but of course since traveling to NY I’ve picked up new germs, a new cold, and I’ve had a dreadful sore throat and head aches! It’s just been back to back to back illness for me, it’s been awful! I’ve had a “cold” or a “bug” almost nonstop the past two month. What’s up with that?!?!)

my dear sweet neighbor made me this super delicious soup earlier in the month when i had a dreadful respiratory infection. how kind of her! thank you amber, i’ll miss having such a sweetheart neighbor!!

Back in April when I had the tummy bug, oh man there were some awful awful days though… like, I don’t remember feeling that ill during chemo, honestly. HUGE thank you to everyone who checked in and sent love + prayers + well wishes. Many, many thanks!

Work is nuts. Life is nuts. Leaving Hawaii and the USMC and our lives as we knew it and starting totally anew is nuts…

But it’s nutty in a hectic way as well as a great, wonderful way. I’ve taken lots of pics during our trip so far and I’m excited to share with y’all the wonderful time we’ve had so far. I’ve been the recipient of so many well wishes and love, and it’s been such a delight to have a loud and great cheering section, encouraging us along every step of the way. On some of our bonkiest, most stressful days – getting an uplifting and happy message just meant so much.

The zany crazy days of April are behind us now, and embracing this new life has been an activity sought with zeal.

I’ll wrap up this April Hawaiian catch up by saying this…

Spending our last Hawaiian day in a busy blur, we had so much going on. I took a minute to chronicle (because of course, I love chronicling as much as I can) and here’s what I pecked out right before we had to pack up the compy:

What can go wrong, will go wrong. Murphy’s Law, right? It’s so all over this move. But as it does, Duggs and i just keep repeating our marriage’s mantra: we can get through anything together. And really, we can. Done: car is shipped. Meds have been (finally) picked up after an uber crazy pharmacy-Tripler ordeal of running around. Rental car is donezo and out of our hands. House is packed up. Snacks and sudoku have been purchased. Movies have been downloaded to mobile devices. All we have to-do now is finish packing up this hotel room and we’re outta here. It feels like a lot to do, but after all we’ve been through in the past few weeks – painting, sickness, the maggots, the mold, paperwork hiccups, so much running around, pooch getting a boo boo on his arm – we’ve been through it all together, as we can anything.

And as we get through it, we come out with smiles and funny stories to tell. So long as I have that Duggs to hold my hand, I’m not intimidated by all this wackiness and manic messiness that’s been our lives as of late.

So now, I’m off to shove some clothes into my suitcases and make that flight!

after saying such sweet sappiness, i had to post a couple pics of me and my duggs being mushy… so here are some that i’ve never posted online, they happen to be from st. patty’s

oh i love this man with all my heart!

…

The way it all worked out we’ve been able to go on a New York state road trip and spend some much-needed time with family and friends. Our tour de loved ones has thus far been amazing, and we still haven’t even made it to the Buffalo-area yet – where there’s so much family left to reunite with!

a strange mid-sentence snapshot of me and the duggs being lunatics in the rental whip, riding around new york! stand by for more of our moving antics to come…

As always, thanks for reading! I’m glad to have made this big ole long post and hopefully it’s been a way to catch everyone up and give somewhat of an explanation for my weeks of no-showing.

We’re still on the road and in the midst of the moving process – so I’m not sure when I’ll be in a place to start posting regularly again. But I sure do hope its soon. I love working on HHR and I so do love each and every reader who takes the time to follow my ramblings and see what’s been going on and what we’ve been up to.

When I sign off each post with “thanks for reading,” please know that I truly mean it. So thanks for standing by and thanks for your patience with all the shuffling we’ve been experiencing lately.